by Anne Stuart
She kicked him then, swinging her shackled feet across the separating foot of space to knock his ankle.
He didn’t awake, but the snoring stopped, at least for a while, as he shifted and grumbled in his sleep.
She needed to concentrate on something, anything, to keep her mind off the rapidly increasing discomfort of her body. She stared at her nemesis, telling herself it was a wonder that even at fifteen she’d been so hopelessly besotted. And knowing, even as her hatred simmered, that it was no wonder at all.
At twenty-two Nicholas Blackthorne had been beautiful. Pale gold skin, black hair, the midnight-blue eyes of an angel. Twelve, almost thirteen years later he no longer looked like an angel. Deep lines scored his once-beautiful face, lines of dissipation and cynicism. His eyes were hooded, weary, his mouth an ironic twist, the lips thinned and mocking. His hair was still long, still very black, though one streak of silver attested to the passage of time.
Women doubtless found him appealing. His body was still lean and strong, his teeth white, his voice a lazy seduction. It would be an easy matter to fashion daydreams about a man of his dangerous attractions. She’d given up daydreams a decade ago. She stared at him across the way, wondering which was more important. Escape? Or killing him?
“Looked your fill?” he inquired in a pleasant enough voice, not bothering to open his eyes.
Which was just as well, since she couldn’t control her instinctive recoil. She said nothing, hunching her body back against the seat, waiting.
His eyes opened, and they were very dark, almost black. “Next time you kick me,” he murmured, “I’ll kick you back.”
She turned her face away from him, staring out the window. It was early afternoon, they’d been on the road since dawn, and it was taking all her concentration to keep her body rigidly upright. She felt uncomfortably dizzy, and that weakness infuriated her.
He leaned forward, too close to her, and she wished she had the energy to spit into that handsome, dissipated face. “Any requests?” he asked, his soft voice taunting. “Anything I can do to make your journey more comfortable?”
She turned to look at him, not bothering to disguise the hatred in her eyes. “You can jump out of the carriage.”
He smiled then, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. “Don’t you want to ask me to stop the carriage? I’d think that after so many hours you might wish to use the necessary.”
She ignored him. If she gave in on one issue, she’d give in on others. She’d sit there, jostled about in the carriage, until she exploded, before she’d ask a favor of him.
He leaned back, watching her. “I suppose I can be generous in this matter. Sooner or later you’ll be on your knees in front of me, begging me. I can wait.” He leaned forward, past her immobile body, and rapped twice on the roof of the coach.
She wanted to flinch away from his nearness, but she held herself as still as the jostling carriage would allow. “Of course,” he continued in a dreamy voice, “there are other, more interesting acts you could perform on your knees. I might find I prefer that.”
She kept her face impassive, willing herself not to launch her body at him in rage. She could do little damage, trussed up as she was. She kept very still, hoping her anger would abate.
“But then a convent-bred miss like you would have no idea what I’m talking about,” Nicholas murmured. “Which is just as well. I’m going to enjoy teaching you.”
The coach jerked to a rough stop, and Ghislaine’s trussed hands couldn’t keep her from hurtling forward across the carriage, falling against him.
He caught her, and his arms were strong and not ungentle. “Such eagerness, ma belle,” he said softly. “At least wait until we get into the inn.”
She jerked herself away from him, collapsing on the seat opposite him. “We’re going to an inn?” she asked, somewhat breathlessly. “Won’t it look a little strange if I’m tied up?”
“You won’t be,” he said carelessly. “I’m counting on your good behavior.”
“And why should you? I wasn’t aware that I had anything left to lose. If I scream for help perhaps someone will stand up to you…”
“I doubt it,” he said lazily “But by all means feel free to try. You’ll find you have two very distinct disadvantages. One, despite your perfect diction, you’re obviously French, and the English will always take the side of an Englishman over a foreigner. Particularly a member of a race who butchered its ruling class and waged war against us for close to a decade. Secondly, you’re dressed as a servant, and I’m a gentleman. We’ve a class-ridden society. No one would raise a hand against a gentleman to help a peasant.”
“Peasant?” Ghislaine echoed, seething.
“Peasant,” Nicholas repeated firmly. “So I leave it up to you. My advice, not that you’ll be inclined to take it, would be to wait until a more opportune moment. If you raise a fuss the moment we stop, who knows when you’ll get to use the privy. And surely if you’re patient enough you could still find an opportunity to murder me.”
It was just as well her hands were bound. She would have slapped his smug, faintly bored face. “You’re wrong,” she said, her voice low and careful.
“About what?”
“I intend to follow your very excellent advice. If I begged for help, the best I could hope for would be to get away from you. I’d much rather kill you first.”
“How delightfully bloodthirsty,” he murmured. “I knew I could count on you. Hold out your wrists.”
“Why?”
He sighed, obviously tired of her questions. “Can’t you feel the carriage slowing? We’re nearing the inn. I would think you’d want to be able to get inside as swiftly as possible, and I’m being gentlemanly enough to untie your hands first so that you can unfasten your ankles. Trust me, I’d greatly enjoy delving beneath your skirts, but I doubt I’d stop below the knees, and I don’t think you’d appreciate that.”
Without a word she held out her arms, noting absently that they trembled with fatigue. There was nothing she could do about it. She hated to show weakness in front of her enemy, but her body failed her. She would simply have to conserve her strength. Grow stronger still, if she were to have any chance of vanquishing him.
He said nothing about the trembling in her arms. At least he hadn’t tied her tightly. Still, the enforced immobility of her arms made them exquisitely painful once they were free, and she muffled a tiny cry of pain as she flexed them.
She reached down for the rope around her ankles, but her fingers were numb, clumsy, and her long skirts kept getting in the way. She could feel Nicholas’s eyes on her, watching her, with amusement, no doubt, as she fumbled with the knots.
She managed to keep her balance as the coach pulled to a stop, but just barely, and the knots were no closer to being untied.
Nicholas leaned down, pushed her hands away, and unfastened the ropes with brisk, competent hands. “You may be in no particular hurry,” he drawled, “but I’ve been too damned long in this carriage as it is.”
Taverner had already appeared at the door, letting down the steps. Nicholas bounded down with restless energy, then reached up a hand to help her, a parody of polite concern on his face.
She had no intention of taking his hand. She had no intention of accepting his help. However, the moment she attempted to climb out of the carriage her legs collapsed underneath her, and she clung to the nearest thing at hand. Nicholas Blackthorne.
He scooped her up in his arms, effortlessly enough. “M’wife’s ill,” he said pleasantly as he shouldered his way into the small, shabby inn. “Her time of month, y’know.”
She used her elbow, jabbing him beneath his ribs, and he gave a satisfying grunt of pain. His hold on her slipped for a moment, and she wondered if she was going to be dropped on the hard wood floor, when his arms tightened again, and she realized he’d been in no danger of dropping her at all. They followed the short, round publican through the dark inn, up a winding flight of stairs to a private parlor
. Nicholas dumped her in a chair, hard enough to jar her bones, and she gave him a sweet smile.
“Thank you, darling,” she murmured in dulcet tones.
The innkeeper beamed at them. “It’s not often we have the quality staying with us,” he said. “We’ll do our best by you, that we will, your worship. The best of food—a boiled mutton tender enough even for the little lady, and a good English pudding, swimming in butter and clotted cream.”
Ghislaine’s false smile faded at the thought. She had a certain affection for her recently adopted land, the lush green of the countryside, the straightforward stubbornness of its people who disapproved of her so strongly She even had a grudging tolerance for the cold weather and incessant rain.
But she despised English cooking.
Nicholas’s own smile widened, and she had the uneasy notion he could read her mind. “My wife is famished,” he announced. “In the meantime, perhaps we’ll leave her a bit of privacy, shall we, while you mix me up a nice rum punch. Er… there’s no back way out of this place, is there?”
The innkeeper was still so bemused by the advent of the upper classes that he didn’t find the question the slightest bit odd. “No, sir. Not from up here. Just the one staircase, I’m afraid. We’re a small hostelry, not used to catering to the quality, and I’m afraid…”
Nicholas put his arm around the little man’s shoulders, steering him from the room adroitly. “Never mind, my good man. I just don’t want my wife to lose her way if she chooses to leave the quiet of our rooms. I’ll be certain to sit where I might command a good view of the stairs.”
“You can see the stairs from any seat in the common room,” the innkeeper said earnestly.
Nicholas looked back over his shoulder, and his smile was mocking. “Good,” he said. “Enjoy your privacy, my dear.”
She waited until the door closed behind them before she attempted to walk. Her first steps met with bitter defeat: she sank to her knees on the faded carpet. It took all her strength to pull herself upright, another five minutes before she could reconnoiter enough to find the necessary creature comforts.
Once she’d attended to her more pressing needs she felt a great deal more human. Until she looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Ellen’s hideous green cape was still draped around her shoulders. Her dress was stiff and sticky with the brandy that had been spilled down her front, her hair was a witch’s tangle around her pale face, and her eyes shone bright with fury. The proper servants at Ainsley Hall wouldn’t recognize the quiet, reserved Mamzelle if they could see her now.
She splashed some water on her face, tried to push her hair into some semblance of order. Not that it should matter. What mattered was getting away from Nicholas Blackthorne before it was too late.
Too late for what? she asked herself. It was already too late for her family, for her mother and father, for her baby brother. It was too late for her, for the innocent she once was. She’d had very little—an uneasy peace and a solid friendship. With Blackthorne’s fateful arrival at Ainsley Hall she’d lost both, left with the one dark treasure she’d hoarded for years. Vengeance.
She had no intention of making her escape without first sending Nicholas to his reward, but she surveyed her surroundings like a general planning a strategic retreat. The casement windows were loose in their frames, the wind rattling them noisily. There were no shed roofs beneath them—if she chose to leave by the window, the fall would likely break her leg.
The parlor was small, drafty; the fire fitful and smoky. The chairs were uncomfortable; the table none too clean; the floor covered with a faded carpet. The adjoining bedroom somehow failed to add to her peace of mind.
Perhaps it was the fact that there was only one bed. A large one, draped with quilts that were quite likely flea-infested. She wondered how his lordship would look covered with flea-bites. He’d probably never even seen a flea.
She had. She’d made her acquaintance with all sorts of vermin, from fleas and mice to maggots and rats and the most despicable of all creatures, man. She was afraid of nothing and no one. Except her own weakness.
The maid who entered the front parlor was ripe, buxom, and cheerful, and the tray she carried reeked of grease and mutton. Ghislaine had to stop herself from sending it away. If she were to prevail she needed to keep up her strength. She hadn’t eaten in what seemed like days—ever since Nicholas had arrived at Ainsley Hall, her meager appetite had fled in the face of more devouring concerns.
“Yer husband said as how I was to bring you up a tray, missus,” she said, her eyes bright with curiosity. “He said you were particularly fond of mutton.”
Yes, Nicholas had read her queasiness at the very word. Ghislaine managed a faint smile. “Particularly,” she said, sitting down at the table.
“I’m Gert,” the girl said, bustling around. “You’re to call me if you need any help. They’ll be bringing yer trunks up in a moment, and then I could bring you some fresh water…”
“I don’t suppose I could have a bath?” she asked, schooling herself to expect disappointment.
Gert scratched her head, not a propitious sign in the possibly lice-infested inn. “I don’t see why not.”
“And fresh bedding?”
If she was afraid she’d offended Gert, she needn’t have worried. The girl simply looked impressed. “I’ve heard quality’s different than the rest of us,” she said, scratching her head again. “Or then, maybe it’s because you’re a Frenchie. They like things extra clean.”
The dirt under Gert’s fingernails looked as if it had been there at least a fortnight. “We’re silly that way,” Ghislaine said faintly.
“Well, then, that’s all right. I’ll just take care of things, tidy up a bit, and heat the water for you. I don’t think there’s much of a need to hurry if you’re wanting yer privacy. Yer husband seems settled in the taproom for a good long time. Mr. Hoskins makes the best rum punch in this county, he does, and yer husband looks like a man what appreciates a good rum punch.”
“I’m sure he does,” Ghislaine said faintly, staring down at the congealed grease on her plate.
“He’s a handsome man, yer husband is. Been married long?”
Gert might be a cheerful slattern, but she knew where a wedding ring ought to reside, and Ghislaine’s long, bare fingers were in plain sight.
“Not long,” she said, picking up the fork.
“Just my luck. We finally have a good-looking rich man come to the inn and he’s already taken,” Gert said with a sigh.
Ghislaine looked up, and her eyes met Gert’s with the age-old knowledge of women. “Feel free to distract him,” she said evenly. “I’d appreciate a night alone.”
Gert didn’t find the suggestion more than slightly surprising. “He’s a good-looking man,” she said again with a lusty sigh.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” Ghislaine murmured. And she applied herself to the fat-encased mutton with stalwart determination.
The bath was no more than lukewarm, the water cloudy, the soap a rough lye concoction that turned her skin raw and red. The towels were rough, the fire continued to smoke, and Ghislaine knew her first moments of real happiness in longer than she could remember. It took desperation to make one appreciate life, she thought. The finest meal she’d ever had was a thin, tasteless stew, days old, and a cup of rancid coffee on an ice-coated street in Paris. She hadn’t eaten in more than a week at the time, and she’d devoured the stew without pausing to consider the origin of the meat or the length of time it had been sitting in the kettle; eaten it so quickly she’d thrown it all up minutes later. And then she’d wept hot, bitter tears for wasting the first bite of solid food she’d seen in ages.
She’d been seventeen years old at the time. That was the day she’d agreed to sell her body on the streets of Paris. And that was the last day she’d cried.
Draping the reasonably clean blanket around her, she opened the valise Gert had carried up, staring at the jumbled interior in di
smay. She knew those colors. The puce, the purple, the lime-green and the startling canary-yellow. Her own wardrobe had consisted of somber blacks and browns and grays, as befitted an upper servant. The totally unsuitable clothes belonged to Ellen, whose taste ran to the flamboyant. The colors were entirely unsuited to Ellen’s pale pink English loveliness, and they’d probably make Ghislaine look like a parrot.
Even worse was the fact that Ellen was tall and robust, a sturdy English flower. Ghislaine was tiny, half a foot shorter. She’d swim in Ellen’s clothes.
It was hardly her problem, unless the excessive length of her skirts hampered her getaway. Since Nicholas was unlikely to let her escape easily, she’d have more than enough time to cobble up the hems.
The only problem was she couldn’t sew. She could bake anything, from brioches to croissants to the most succulent boeuf en daube. But she couldn’t manage to set a straight stitch. She could remember her mother’s mock despair as she surveyed her daughter’s needlework…
She slammed the door down on the memory, shocked at the freshness of the pain, the rawness of a decade-old loss. Damn Nicholas Blackthorne! As if she didn’t owe him enough, his presence had set things in motion, memories and feelings that she thought she’d managed to bury long ago. If she hadn’t wanted to kill him before, she wanted to now.
There were no nightgowns in the valise. She could always consider it a simple oversight, but she knew she was being optimistic. Whoever had packed the bag, whether it was the evil-eyed Taverner or Nicholas himself, hadn’t thought she needed to be troubled by a night rail.
Nicholas’s valise had made an appearance as well. Feeling no compunctions whatsoever, she opened it, pulling out one of his beautiful cambric shirts and putting it on, letting the blanket drop to the floor. It hung to her knees; the sleeves dangled well below her fingertips; and it was the softest, most elegant thing she’d worn in years. She was half-tempted to rip it off her body, but her choices were not appealing. Ellen’s clothes were fancy, scratchy, hardly fit for sleeping. Her own dress was sticky and stiff from the spilled brandy, and she couldn’t stand the thought of putting it back on. And Ellen’s fine lawn undergarments were too revealing.